Believe it or Not, Here She Comes

Lorraine Warren climbed into bed one night in 1976 and suddenly had no feeling in her hands.

"My arms and legs were paralyzed and our two dogs were like statues," she recalled. "I heard a noise like a bad windstorm."

The howling presence swept through the living room and up the stairs, ever closer to the bedroom of the Warrens' Monroe home.

A dark human shape formed in the doorway as Lorraine lay motionless under her covers.

Finally able to move her arms, Lorraine, a deeply religious woman, made the sign of the cross and asked God to make it leave.

When it disappeared she felt a hand close onto hers ...

It was her husband Ed, who relayed the story of a similar experience he had in his office downstairs.

The Warrens, two renowned ghost hunters and founders of the New England Society of Psychic Research, had investigated over 2,000 hauntings together. On that fateful night they had just returned from the Amityville House upon which the famous movie the Amityville Horror is based, only to have an evil presence follow them home.

"It affected our personal lives more than any other case," Lorrain said of the Amityville house.

Two years earlier, Ronald DeFeo murdered his parents and four siblings execution style in their house in Amityville, Long Island. The following year, George and Kathleen Lutz thought they had a great bargain when they bought the six-bedroom Dutch Colonial with its gambrel roof, a swimming pool and a boathouse for $80,000. But the couple soon reported being terrorized by paranormal phenomena.

The haunting was disproved by "experts" and many people have expressed skepticism over the Warrens' work over the past decades. But Ed and Lorraine Warren have gained a legion of believers, who have packed rooms whenever they share their findings at a formal event.

Ed died a few years ago, but Lorraine continues their work with her son-in-law Tony Spera. Both made a presentation to a large audience gathered inside the Shelton High School auditorium on Oct. 6. The event was called "An Evening with America's Most Famous Ghost hunter: Lorraine Warren."

She and her husband's investigations have led to the publishing of nine books, including Deliver Us from Evil and The Haunted, which was made into a movie.

According to Lorraine Warren's website, she can "best be described as a clairvoyant and light trance medium. This means that she can hear, feel, and sense things through her sensitivity or 'sixth' sense, rather than the normal five senses. She can also see a person's 'Aura.'"

"A person's Aura is the supernatural glow that emanates from every living thing.  It is the energy that surrounds us, it even surrounds our pets," she explains. "I can tell quite a lot about a person from this glow. You see the aura produces different colors, blue hues, green, red, yellow and various other shades. They have different intensities to them, some are bright, some are dull, sometimes they spike out like fireworks. From the condition of the aura I can tell a lot about a person. I can tell if they are religious or not, if they have emotional troubles, or even if they have a violent temper."

Spera said Lorraine Warren has been investigating hauntings for over 60 years, while he has studied psychic phenomena for almost 30.

"Sometimes it can be very exhausting, but it's very fulfilling," Warren said.

Warner Bros. plans to release a movie on Lorraine Warren's life story in 12 to 18 months. Spera said it will be called The Conjuring.

Never Challenge Evil

Those attending "An Evening with America's Most Famous Ghost hunter: Lorraine Warren," watched documentaries on ghosts and poltergeists featuring the Warrens, an exorcism and saw photos with ghostly phenomena.

In one of the documentaries, Ed Warren said during investigations "I've been pinched, thrown across rooms, slashed, had burns and been thrown down the stairs."

The Warrens have relics from hauntings stored in a museum in the basement of their Monroe home — including a possessed Raggedy Anne doll.

According to the story, a nurse from Hartford received a Raggedy Anne doll from her mother. When left on the bed with its arms at its side and legs straight out, she and her roommate (another nurse) would come home and see the arms and legs crossed. Other days it would be in difference rooms, sitting in a chair, kneeling or in a variety of other positions.

The nurses held a séance and a medium told them the spirit of Annabelle Higgins, a girl who died in a car accident outside her apartment, wanted to inhabit the doll and live with them.

They allowed it and more things started happening. One day, Lou, a friend, had fallen into a deep sleep and dreamed that the doll strangled him. Another time, he and Angie (one of the nurses) heard loud noises in her roommate Donna's room.

After the noise stopped, Lou went in to investigate. The doll had been tossed to the corner of the room, and as he approached it, he felt a presence behind him. When he turned around there was no one there. But he yelled, doubled over and grabbed his chest, according to his account. Blood came from the front of his shirt and he had three scratches in a claw mark on his chest.

The doll is now kept in a glass case in the Warrens' Museum with the sign: "Warning, Positively Do Not Open."

Lorraine told the story of a Monroe police officer, who turned white as a sheet and was out of breath after being left alone with the doll. She said he abruptly resigned and was never heard from again.

Spera said a young couple taunted the doll and that the guy kept challenging it to scratch him.

Three months later he died when his motorcycle struck a tree and his girlfriend was badly injured. Prior to the accident, the woman said they were laughing about the doll, according to Warren.

"You should never challenge evil," Spera warned.

Ghost Stories, an Exorcism ...

His eyes rolled up into his head and he sat very still. Spittle poured from his lips and turned to blood as it trailed down his shirt. These were images from the exorcism of Maurice Theriault, a tomato farmer who was allegedly possessed by a demon in Massachusetts.

After the exorcism, Lorraine Warren said Theriault went on to have a tragic end, shooting his wife to death before turning a gun on himself in a murder-suicide.

Warren and Spera also shared the story of a haunted house on Lindley Street in Bridgeport. They said thousands of people surrounded the house one night and nine police officers arrived for crowd control. When the officers went into the house, they saw chairs that had stacked up by themselves, according to the story.

Warren said the officers asked to be blessed before going home.

Spera and Warren told their audience how to take photos when they sense a presence — and to snap the shots about 20 seconds apart. One of the series of photos they showed was the forming of the large head of a woman they believe to have been the White Lady Ghost, who has reportedly been seen at Union Cemetery on Route 59 in Easton.

Spera warned wannabe ghost hunters against visiting the Easton cemetery with their cameras under the cover of night. The police department in that town has slapped numerous trespassers with hefty fines over the years in reaction to complaints.

Spera and Warren also warned members of their audience not to visit Dudleytown alone. The place is believed to be a cursed village.

9/11 Stories

A Newtown firefighter, who went to Ground Zero with his father to help search for victims after the terrorist attacks, took photos there. One of the cityscapes shows a partial formation in red, high up toward the sky. Warren believes that is the aura of one of the Trade Center Towers.

During the presentation, a nurse was called up to share a story from her visit to the city after the attacks.

She slept on a couch when, "I saw faces coming toward me."

Voices asked, "What happened to us? Where is my family?" she recalled.

"One aggressive man wanted to take over my body and find his family," the nurse said. "There were hundreds of spirits. They wanted to go home."

She said she had an out-of-body experience and tried to help them to cross over.

Finding Religion

Spera explained that a spirit sometimes does not pass on after a person dies when they do not want to leave right away, and when someone sees it, it is a ghost.

"Many people saw a ghost or lived in a haunted house," he said, adding that people themselves can sometimes be haunted.

Some entities are benign, while others are evil and have never walked the Earth, according to Spera.

He warned against using Ouija boards, which he said can open the door to another realm, allowing entities to cross over. Spera said most use Ouija boards to communicate with a lost loved one.

"A demonic spirit will try to fool you and deceive you into believing it is something you want it to be," he said.

Once allowed in, Spera said it could pull the blankets off you when you go to bed, pull on the bed and touch you. "It could happen."

Warren also warned against other practices used to communicate with the dead, including Tarot cards and table turning.

"It's very easy to open doors. It's much harder to get rid of them," she said.

In many of she and her late husband's investigations, Warren said they learned that the family did not go to church or that the children were not baptized. Many were Atheists. In fact, Ronald DeFeo, the man convicted of executing his family in the Amity house, was a practicing Satanist, according to Warren.

"Faith and belief in God is the only ammunition against the demonic," Warren said, adding it is "very rare" for families involved with church activity to endure a haunting.

Through the years, Ed and Lorraine Warren have had their share of critics, who do not believe in ghosts nor in their investigative work.

"I don't have to convince the world that these things exist," Lorraine Warren said. "You can't force people to believe in something they've never encountered and that you hope they never do."

The haunting was disproved by "experts" and many people have expressed skepticism over the Warrens' work over the past decades. But Ed and Lorraine Warren have gained a legion of believers, who have packed rooms whenever they share their findings at a formal event.

Ed died a few years ago, but Lorraine continues their work with her son-in-law Tony Spera. Both made a presentation to a large audience gathered inside the Shelton High School auditorium on Oct. 6. The event was called "An Evening with America's Most Famous Ghosthunter: Lorraine Warren."

She and her husband's investigations have led to the publishing of nine books, including Deliver Us from Evil and The Haunted, which was made into a movie.

According to Lorraine Warren's website, she can "best be described as a clairvoyant and light trance medium. This means that she can hear, feel, and sense things through her sensitivity or 'sixth' sense, rather than the normal five senses. She can also see a person's 'Aura.'"

"A person's Aura is the supernatural glow that emanates from every living thing.  It is the energy that surrounds us, it even surrounds our pets," she explains. "I can tell quite a lot about a person from this glow. You see the aura produces different colors, blue hues, green, red, yellow and various other shades. They have different intensities to them, some are bright, some are dull, sometimes they spike out like fireworks. From the condition of the aura I can tell a lot about a person. I can tell if they are religious or not, if they have emotional troubles, or even if they have a violent temper."

Spera said Lorraine Warren has been investigating hauntings for over 60 years, while he has studied psychic phenomena for almost 30.

"Sometimes it can be very exhausting, but it's very fulfilling," Warren said.

Warner Bros. plans to release a movie on Lorraine Warren's life story in 12 to 18 months. Spera said it will be called The Conjuring.

Never Challenge Evil

Those attending "An Evening with America's Most Famous Ghosthunter: Lorraine Warren," watched documentaries on ghosts and poultergeists featuring the Warrens, an excorism and saw photos with ghostly phenomena.

In one of the documentaries, Ed Warren said during investigations "I've been pinched, thrown across rooms, slashed, had burns and been thrown down the stairs."

The Warrens have relics from hauntings stored in a museum in the basement of their Monroe home — including a possessed Raggedy Anne doll.

According to the story, a nurse from Hartford received a Raggedy Anne doll from her mother. When left on the bed with its arms at its side and legs straight out, she and her roommate (another nurse) would come home and see the arms and legs crossed. Other days it would be in difference rooms, sitting in a chair, kneeling or in a variety of other positions.

The nurses held a seance and a medium told them the spirit of Annabelle Higgins, a girl who died in a car accident outside her apartment, wanted to inhabit the doll and live with them.

They allowed it and more things started happening. One day, Lou, a friend, had fallen into a deep sleep and dreamed that the doll strangled him. Another time, he and Angie (one of the nurses) heard loud noises in her roommate Donna's room.

After the noise stopped, Lou went in to investigate. The doll had been tossed to the corner of the room, and as he approached it, he felt a presence behind him. When he turned around there was no one there. But he yelled, doubled over and grabbed his chest, according to his account. Blood came from the front of his shirt and he had three scratches in a claw mark on his chest.

The doll is now kept in a glass case in the Warrens' Museum with the sign: "Warning, Positively Do Not Open."

Lorraine told the story of a Monroe police officer, who turned white as a sheet and was out of breath after being left alone with the doll. She said he abruptly resigned and was never heard from again.

Spera said a young couple taunted the doll and that the guy kept challenging it to scratch him.

Three months later he died when his motorcycle struck a tree and his girlfriend was badly injured. Prior to the accident, the woman said they were laughing about the doll, according to Warren.

"You should never challenge evil," Spera warned.

Ghost Stories, an Excorsism ...

His eyes rolled up into his head and he sat very still. Spittle poured from his lips and turned to blood as it trailed down his shirt. These were images from the exorcism of Maurice Theriault, a tomato farmer who was allegedly possessed by a demon in Massachusetts.

After the exorcism, Lorraine Warren said Theriault went on to have a tragic end, shooting his wife to death before turning a gun on himself in a murder-suicide.

Warren and Spera also shared the story of a haunted house on Lindley Street in Bridgeport. They said thousands of people surrounded the house one night and nine police officers arrived for crowd control. When the officers went into the house, they saw chairs that had stacked up by themselves, according to the story.

Warren said the officers asked to be blessed before going home.

Spera and Warren told their audience how to take photos when they sense a presence — and to snap the shots about 20 seconds apart. One of the series of photos they showed was the forming of the large head of a woman they believe to have been the White Lady Ghost, who has reportedly been seen at Union Cemetery on Route 59 in Easton.

Spera warned wannabe ghosthunters against visiting the Easton cemetery with their cameras under the cover of night. The police department in that town has slapped numerous trespassers with hefty fines over the years in reaction to complaints.

Spera and Warren also warned members of their audience not to visit Dudleytown alone. The place is believed to be a cursed village.

9/11 Stories

A Newtown firefighter, who went to Ground Zero with his father to help search for victims after the terrorist attacks, took photos there. One of the cityscapes shows a partial formation in red, high up toward the sky. Warren believes that is the aura of one of the Trade Center Towers.

During the presentation, a nurse was called up to share a story from her visit to the city after the attacks.

She slept on a couch when, "I saw faces coming toward me."

Voices asked, "What happened to us? Where is my family?" she recalled.

"One aggressive man wanted to take over my body and find his family," the nurse said. "There were hundreds of spirits. They wanted to go home."

She said she had an out-of-body experience and tried to help them to cross over.

Finding Religion

Spera explained that a spirit sometimes does not pass on after a person dies when they do not want to leave right away, and when someone sees it, it is a ghost.

"Many people saw a ghost or lived in a haunted house," he said, adding that people themselves can sometimes be haunted.

Some entities are benign, while others are evil and have never walked the Earth, according to Spera.

He warned against using Ouija boards, which he said can open the door to another realm, allowing entities to cross over. Spera said most use Ouija boards to communicate with a lost loved one.

"A demonic spirit will try to fool you and deceive you into believing it is something you want it to be," he said.

Once allowed in, Spera said it could pull the blankets off you when you go to bed, pull on the bed and touch you. "It could happen."

Warren also warned against other practices used to communicate with the dead, including Tarot cards and table turning.

"It's very easy to open doors. It's much harder to get rid of them," she said.

In many of she and her late husband's investigations, Warren said they learned that the family did not go to church or that the children were not baptized. Many were Atheists. In fact, Ronald DeFeo, the man convicted of executing his family in the Amity house, was a practicing Satanist, according to Warren.

"Faith and belief in God is the only ammunition against the demonic," Warren said, adding it is "very rare" for families involved with church activity to endure a haunting.

Through the years, Ed and Lorraine Warren have had their share of critics, who do not believe in ghosts nor in their investigative work.

"I don't have to convince the world that these things exist," Lorraine Warren said. "You can't force people to believe in something they've never encountered and that you hope they never do."